Five writers: not often a good sign. Four core members of the Icelandic
Vesturport company including director Gísli Örn
Garðarsson, plus Carl Grose, presumably for some polishing of the
English translation. No credit given to Goethe, although
Garðarsson’s programme note makes clear that it is his version of
the Faust story, thoroughly filleted, which provided the basis for this
new version.

This tale begins in an old people’s home on Christmas Eve, when ageing
actor Johann (Thorsteinn Gunnarsson), after pondering life’s
imponderables and wishing that he had had a chance to play in Faust, finds that his chess partner
is not a fellow inmate but Mefisto. Enter a couple of subordinate
demons, with one of whom (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) Johann/Faust
body-swaps after the devilish but undefined pact is signed. He then
pursues his yearning for young Greta, who in this version is a nurse in
the home. Some by-play with a Walpurgisnacht episode, the murder of
Greta’s brother, and then Faust’s final prayer for redemption. And
that’s your two hours’ worth.

Vesturport first came to British attention with their revelatory Romeo And Juliet, which used aerial
and trapeze sequences as a metaphor for the soarings and tumblings of
love. Since then, both they as a company and Garðarsson as a
performer have become known for acrobaticky theatre work. This can make
for exciting spectacles, as here when much of the human/demonic
contention takes place on a crawl net extending above the heads of the
entire stalls audience.

But it can also be meaningless and confusing: Hell is down there – we know this because
the demons first spring up from trapdoors – so what are they doing also
inhabiting the angels’ space above? A number of other moments likewise
look superficially clever but a moment’s thought renders them
contradictory and bewildering, such as Greta’s response (or rather lack
of response) to the body-swap. Saying that Goethe’s version is
sprawling and sometimes incoherent is not much of an excuse. Nick Cave
and Warren Ellis’s score is effective but not extraordinary (it would
have been so if they had recorded their own version of “Last
Christmas”, instead of the production using Wham!’s original). I think
Garðarsson intended to bring Faust
back to full life by giving it a big jolt of electricity, but he has
misjudged the charge and fried it instead.